


DC Comics Het Ficlets

by Rubynye



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: F/M, Ficlet Collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-18
Updated: 2010-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 10:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of assorted, untitled het ficlets in the DC Comics fandom, mostly Batfamily and allies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Babs/Dick. "Right time, right place have never been friends."

Barbara runs across the driveway, her dress billowing. Midnight blue embroidered in yellow shimmers around her, and if it wasn't the prettiest dress in the store--- therefore not too expensive to be plausible for a young librarian--- it's enough to be almost ridiculously fun, even aside from the way the color scheme makes her bite her lip and silently snicker.

"Hey, Ba--" Dick stops in the doorway and halfway through her name, his eyes as round as his mouth. He's puppyishly cute when he's shocked.

"Hello, Mr. Grayson." Barbara keeps her face straight as if she walks into Wayne Manor wearing silk every day. "I'm invited."

"Wish I were," Dick mutters; behind her she can hear him turn around, watching her, and she grins.

  


***

  
Three days, one hour, and twenty-eight minutes later --- Barbara's been watching the clock to the right of the door--- Dick climbs through the window of her hospital room. _Because._ Because he just couldn't pretend to be ordinary, for her sake, for once. Because he can.

"Babs." His whisper almost covers the faint scuff of his boots. She doesn't turn her head. Maybe he'll think she can't. "Babs, are you awake?" As he crosses the room she lies very still. "I came as soon as I heard and I could get the Titans all set. I--"

If he comes any closer she knows he'll touch her. Her arm, possibly her face. "Dick," Babs says, looking at the clock on the wall.

"Babs?" He gasps relief. She can almost feel his breath, pounding against her ear. "I'm---"

"Go home."

He stops breathing. The clock marks the next minute with an industrial click.

"Go home to the Titans." By the time she adds, "To Koriand'r," she can hear the scuff on the windowsill again.

  


**

  
His expression is completely wrong for the suit.

From the neck down Dick is Batman. The suit's sized for him, and slightly modified to help him appear taller, bulkier. Barbara can see the accomodations for Dick's flexibility, and the ways Bruce camouflaged them when he constructed this suit, all the way up to the double-layered gorget thickening and armoring Dick's long fine neck. But above that gorget is a stretch of pale skin, and a tilted chin, and Dick's vulnerable, open face.

A month ago she was looking at the invitation to his wedding and composing her regrets. Now here he is, in her living room, drinking her coffee and frowning with entirely too tender of a mouth. "I can't do this," he says, soft and thin and wobbly. "Robin is great, he's giving it his all, but how do I do this? How can I be Batman?"

Barbara wants to pull his head to her shoulder and hug him for a long, long time. But that's not what Batman needs. She lifts her chin, and he unconsciously lifts his as he sits up; she folds her arms, and inhales, and tells him.

  


*

  
Dick winces in his sleep every time he turns, which makes sense considering how thoroughly he's bruised up. Barbara is sitting on the side of her bed watching him. She really should be reading reports, running another trace, or cleaning the bathtub, but she's watching Dick sleep.

When she trails her fingers across his forehead he smiles. He's probably going to wake up soon, from hunger if nothing else. Which is a good sign.

Barbara keeps watching him, his chest's rise and fall, the shadows of his lashes on his cheekbones, the pulse between his collarbones left bare by the bandages across his left shoulder. _One day he's not going to come back,_ her common sense whispers to her, as it has for the last thirty-nine hours and fifty-seven minutes. Counting in her dreams. _One day he'll get himself killed._

"I know," Barbara says aloud. She should shut the voice up with her plan for she'll deal with it; she has contingencies for everything, after all. Except that. She has no contingency plan for that.

"Mmm?" Dick shifts towards her, the crease between his eyes furrowing and smoothing as he winces and breathes and opens his eyes, and smiles. "Hey, Babs."

"Hey, Man Wonder." Dick's smile is familiarly beautiful, painfully bright. Barbara keeps her thoughts out of her own smile, letting him dazzle her distractingly as Dick pushes himself up on his elbows and kisses her.


	2. Talia al Ghul, on Jason and on Bruce

Timestamp to "Till It Bleeds Daylight".

Talia can still walk unseen if she chooses, even into Gotham, the city of the Bat. She can stretch the shadows like a cloak over a whole organization of villains, shielding them from the eyes she once believed all-seeing. A week's worth of tracking, a large map and a palmful of pins, and she and Luthor can predict where in the city will be safe for their fellows on any given night. With the Oracle's team mysteriously relocated to Metropolis, the bright-haired Robin dead and his other protégés flown to Bludhaven, he is more alone than ever, as if his loneliness will protect those he loves.

She could laugh, if she would, sitting here on a warehouse rooftop. It never protected her. And it will not ward the young heroes of Bludhaven, with Deathstroke newly, grimly eager to destroy Gotham's grimy-faced little sister. The plan he and the Fatal Five drew up is brashly showy, but it appeals to her sense of spectacle. She can understand destruction as a paradoxically enlivening response to disappointment.

So too, she sees, can Jason. From where she sits her binoculars show her a spreading fire blooming like buds unfurling along a dark branch, as one building then another and another explodes. Talia wishes she could see Jason from here, standing defiantly proud, waiting for the Batman to find him amidst the firelight and ash. She cannot, but she smiles still; while those eyes look elsewhere, her little crew can perform a few necessary tasks. She smiles, and stands, grapple at the ready, and they come forward with a wave of her hand.


	3. Steph/Tim in the subway

Tim has always liked the older subway stations, and even more now that he's Robin. Their rafters are much more comfortable, and full of convenient shadows. He's hanging in those shadows, waiting for his informant Smuffy to show up, when a familiar flash of bright hair catches his attention.

He'd forgotten this is one of Steph's alternate routes home. She's bouncing through the crowd, obviously to a beat, and Tim spares himself a little self-congratulation for buying her that iPod for her birthday. Her hair flares out from under a garish red cap with purple stars so big he can pick them out from where he's sitting, and a couple guys turn to watch her pass. Tim hears a low growl, realizes it's his own, and shakes his head at himself.

The rhythm Steph's walking to hitches for a moment, as she turns her face up. He didn't tell her he'd be here, but Tim settles back a little further into the shadows, just in case, and watches her hair bounce as she shrugs, then veers towards one of the vendors lining the exit. Idly, he wonders what's in the little red box she buys.

Steph pulls the object out and flourishes it over her head, just once, with a half-turned glance up and a grin. It's a sprig of mistletoe.

Tim really wants to laugh.

She keeps going, down the steps and outside, and Tim sits on his rafter and watches till she disappears, and smiles.

Then he turns back to scanning the crowd.


	4. Dinah and Helena shopping for Barbara

"This is reprehensible," Helena snarled in a voice that regularly makes grown men piss themselves. "Completely disgusting."

Dinah didn't argue. She didn't even snort. She just kept pulling on Helena's arm till she'd hauled her into the Superhero Shoppe by brute force. "But they're so _cute_," she cooed at a display of tiny Superman dolls. "Aren't you cuuuuuute?"

As soon as she had her arm free, Helena folded it with the other. "There's nothing here but toys and junk. And does anyone--- do any of the heroes even get revenues from this stuff?"

"Maybe Batman does." Dinah prodded a figurine of him as if it might turn out to be a voodoo doll. _That_ Helena would be tempted to buy. "Maybe that's how he makes his money."

"Whatever. The point is, we're not going to find anything for her here. Just like the other fifteen sto-- oh, Mother of God." Helena felt Dinah turn beside her, because she couldn't look away from the display. Her eyes were riveted, her gaze captured.

"Holy crap," Dinah agreed. "They even got the smile right. And the thighs."

Helena didn't want to know how Dinah knew about the thighs. "Her own personal Nightwing."

"Well, she _has_ got one."

"Yeah, but this one won't talk back, or run off whenever Bat-daddy whistles."

Dinah laughed, just like bells ringing. "I think we've found our O the perfect Christmas gift."


End file.
